Dahon UNIO
- Thread starter tony3ts
- Start date
The only shop I can find with those supposedly "in stock" is Santafixie, and they have a very bad Trustpilot rating.
Interesting 200W mid drive - perhaps 50W less than usual protects a TSDZ2-like blue gear?
"The motor is branded Dahon, but they actually partnered with Tong Shen to develop it."
uk.trustpilot.com
Interesting 200W mid drive - perhaps 50W less than usual protects a TSDZ2-like blue gear?
"The motor is branded Dahon, but they actually partnered with Tong Shen to develop it."
DAHON UNIO E20 - Electric Bike Action
It all started back in the ’80s when Dr. David Hon, a leading expert in laser technology, decided to change careers and focus on something he was passionate about. That passion was green transportation, and he specifically wanted to make a great folding bike. His first project was to create a...
electricbikeaction.com
Santafixie is rated "Average" with 3.5 / 5 on Trustpilot
Do you agree with Santafixie's TrustScore? Voice your opinion today and hear what 85 customers have already said.
uk.trustpilot.com
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I wonder why C H White have none of those in stock?
Electric Folding Bikes
Large range of around a dozen different types of Electric Folding Bikes from basic £1099.99 to the best you can buy at £3000.00 - £4000.00.
... it's worth ringing up to ask about their experiences of the Dahon Unio E20. By the way, mine's an old Dahon Helios P8 converted using a Bafang BBS01B:
Cyclemotion - Mobility Solutions for an Integrated World
Folding bikes by Cyclemotion UK. We offer the world's largest selection of portable folding bicycle and bicycle accessories. We have folding bicycles for every riding requirement - from commuting, to traveling, to mountain biking.
www.world-wheels.co.uk
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It's shown on both Dahon's US and EU website(s) as a 2024 model. Perhaps the write-ups seen are early pre-production models just to gauge market reaction?
Only Halfords are listed as both official UK Dahon Distributors and Retailers on the official website (no C H White in Wiltshire being shown on any of Dahon's supplier lists/maps that I could see).
It's an interesting mid-drive e-bike but odd having mechanical v-brakes when Dahon have their own newly designed disc brake system (given this is one of their more premium bikes)? Also strange that its RRP appears to be higher in the US ($2500) than in the EU? You'd expect that to be the other way around for an American Company. Maybe it's being made in Dahon's new Romanian factory? That weld around the hinge doesn't look too clean/clever either, especially now even the cheap Chinese bikes are achieving perfectly smooth welds at lower price points.
I've not heard about Dahon's Romanian factory? Do you have any links? I know previously they were having their bikes assembled by Max.com in Bulgaria. This helped them reduce their taxation/tariffs in Europe but the bikes were only assembled there, typically from frames and forks supplied by the factories Dahon buys from like Fuji-ta in China. Some of the European Dahon models were inferior to those supplied to the US market despite the increase in price. I'm not a fan of Dahon myself I don't think they represent good quality or value and their marketing is often plainly dishonest and manipulative.
I do have one of their early folding bikes but rebranded to Bickerton. I believe it was manufactured by the same company in Taiwan that manufactured many or all of the Birdy folding bikes. I forget the name of the company.
They've got more time to chat after 4pm... from those long chats, I gleaned that they buy new old stock from many sources, and they keep rarities for their special builds using all Dahon parts. This with Jetstream-like disc brakes and dual suspension looks to me a very appealing conversion candidate. Just wish it had a rear rack, telescopic handlebar stem, and mudguards like my Helios P8!
Range Extender for Cycle Alarm.
The Blog post below describes how to modify one of the popular cycle disturb\motion alarms so you can get a warning that your bike is being nicked even if your out of earshot or have not so good hearing. https://stuartsprojects.github.io/2022/09/08/Cycle-Alarm-Extender.html Trying to find an...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
About a year ago, I detected an annoying squeak coming from... somewhere... whenever power was applied in a short space of time. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I discovered it was coming from inside the hinge mechanism, which looked like it hadn't been lubricated since leaving the factory (frame serial number decoded as manufactured in April 2006), wherever that is/was (for all I know, it could have been manufactured by prisoner slaves in one of the many Amazon colony sweatshops which Bezos has secretly built on the dark side of the moon) - easily remedied by a few drops of "4-in-1" oil. That wide inflexible looking hunk of metal securely welded on with great big metal gloops looks certain to prevent frame flex caused by the motor, on that half of the frame anyway. Less chance of mysterious annoying squeaks, among other things. My folding bike hasn't folded permanently or snapped in half yet, despite small jumps, and a BBS01B.
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Bear in mind Dahon are not good for supplying spares for their standard bikes. There is a lot of proprietary parts on this ebike which could mean in a few years it unfixable. I must admit at £1600 approx this is more reasonable pricing than I am used to from Dahon but then it looks a fairly basic construction frame and simple high tensile steel fork and tongsheng are not dear for mid-drive motors.
You can see the frame has a dedicated mounting for the tongsheng mid-drive motor which is great for strength and durability but when the frame cracks or the motor fails and is beyond economic repair the bike is landfill only plus once the proprietary battery pack wears out a replacement maybe ridiculously priced too.
It's probably only good for 2-3 years of heavy use and perhaps up to 6 years of light use. If it fails during the warranty period I would request/demand a replacement or refund as I can imagine you might wait a long time for repairs which has been typical for Dahon standard bikes in the past, hinge mechanisms etc.
They state 60Nm peak torque for the motor but the chainset is 52T and the maximum rear cog is 32T. You allow a 2Nm loss through the chain with mid-drive so you are down to 58Nm and then times that by the cog ratio 32/52 equals about 35Nm peak torque. That is less than many hub motors with all the increased drivetrain wear and complexities in the motor. Also to get that motor to 60Nm would probably need around 350-450W from the battery and at just over 300Wh capacity that will drain it quickly. I suspect that 60Nm figure is not realistic except for short momentary peak output.
Seems a poor product to me as mid-drive here isn't performing as well in torque terms as many hub motor folding ebikes and those ebikes are more reliable and have massively extended drivetrain life. I feel for this type of bike a hub motor is far superior.
I imagine every owner of an old Dahon discovers CH White eventually. Their main competitor was Holland Bike Parts, who provide almost no detail about their parts, don't answer questions, photos on their website are tiny, and their prices are hilarious. Because of Brexit red tape, CH White are the only game in town. Cerain rare parts that they keep for their special builds they won't sell, I've tried.
This Dahon US website page here says:
DAHON also celebrated the following achievements last year [2021]:
- Successfully registered dozens of patents.
- Had a great increase in sales compared to 2019 and 2020.
- Developed production facilities in Romania and also another European-free-trade-zone country.
- Launched Unio e20, the compact foldable e-bike, and HIT, a give-back-to-society bike designed for people who need to commute under pandemic.
- Built a 3D Virtual Showroom.
- Expanded operation to include sharing of our technology/designs, parts and brand name with not just folding bike makers, but also regular bike and parts suppliers. Dozens of partners across 7 nations have signed up and profited.
- Increased marketing investments, by doing more SEO, KOL reviews, and encouraging our distributors to boost marketing activities and claim their reimbursement from DAHON.
- Shortened the SKU list of bikes and parts, and prepared some inventories, to achieve more stable delivery under the pandemic situation.
Jetstream is a fuji-ta folding bicycle only rebranded to Dahon for some markets. It would be Battle branded in many Asian markets. Here it is on the fuji-ta site but they are only showing the original model which Dahon did sell but the model you are showing above has more ovalised tubes so has been updated. Fuji-ta are huge for folding bikes, Halfords, Go Outdoors, Decathlon, Raleigh and numerous other brands slap their name onto fuji-ta folding bikes. I've got a Bicycles4u Paris model and that appears to be fuji-ta too. They also supply many frames and forks to assembly plants like max.com in Bulgaria for Dahon rebranded models. Sometimes Dahon models are stripped of frame strengthening in order to give them a weight advantage. Even folding bike frames have some customisation as some of the Muddyfox and Carrera folding bikes look identical but there is a seat tube diameter variation and some have additional frame strengthening like under the downtube next to the headtube or above the downtube next to the seat tube. Personally I think it is important to keep bicycle brand and bicycle manufacturer separate as most brands simply buy their product from Asian factories and rebrand it. Most US and European brands have no real manufacturing capacity and many of them have very little design input into the bikes and only have basic assembly plants at best.They've got more time to chat after 4pm... from those long chats, I gleaned that they buy new old stock from many sources, and they keep rarities for their special builds using all Dahon parts. This with Jetstream-like disc breaks and dual suspension looks to me a very appealing conversion candidate. Just wish it had a rear rack and mudguards like my Helios P8!
Range Extender for Cycle Alarm.
The Blog post below describes how to modify one of the popular cycle disturb\motion alarms so you can get a warning that your bike is being nicked even if your out of earshot or have not so good hearing. https://stuartsprojects.github.io/2022/09/08/Cycle-Alarm-Extender.html Trying to find an...
About a year ago, I detected an annoying squeak coming from... somewhere... whenever power was applied in a short space of time. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I discovered it was coming from inside the hinge mechanism, which looked like it hadn't been lubricated since leaving the factory, wherever that is/was (for all I know, it could have been manufactured by prisoner slaves in one of the many Amazon sweatshops which Bezos has secretly built on the dark side of the moon) - easily remedied by a few drops of "4-in-1" oil. That wide inflexible looking hunk or metal seurely welded on with great big metal gloops looks certain to prevent frame flex caused by the motor, on that half of the frame anyway. Less chance of mysterious annoying squeaks, among other things. My folding bike hasn't folded permanently or snapped in half yet, despite small jumps, and a BBS01B.
HANMA8 - Tianjin Fuji-ta Bicycle Co.,Ltd.
www.fuji-ta.com
Developed production facilities is careful use of words because it does not mean they own these facilities. It could well be that Max.com has just opened a factory in Romania which is right next door to Bulgaria or more likely a company cheaper than Max.com that makes bikes in Romania outpriced Max.com. Romania is probably the cheapest country in Europe to manufacture products. I watched a video about a Dahon factory in China a few years ago and it was mainly an assembly plant with frames and forks bought in except for a tiny corner of the factory welding frames in low volume all by hand.
Basically Dahon marketing makes huge claims about building bikes from scratch to justify their premium pricing but from people who have worked at the factories have stated their is no frame production or insignificant frame production or wheel lacing etc. A quick search showed this, a Dahon factory video but nothing more than assembly shown despite the video claiming otherwise. It annoys me a bit when companies are so dishonest and manipulative. I don't suppose it really matters where the frames are made in fact probably better to be made by more advanced frame factories with robots etc like fuji-ta but its the manipulation of consumers that annoys me.
Unsuitable for bikes, still available for wheelchairs:
loopwheels.com
DAHON Unique Shock Absorbing LOOPWHEEL Mu Uno Folding Bike, Used 5 times ! | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for DAHON Unique Shock Absorbing LOOPWHEEL Mu Uno Folding Bike, Used 5 times ! at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk
Loopwheels
Loopwheels are suspension wheels for wheelchairs. Our vibration reduction wheels give you a smoother ride, which can reduced fatigue and lead to greater independence.
loopwheels.com
Also the Dahon Curl is a horrible Brompton clone. It removes the rear suspension block of the Brompton and has a aluminium rigid frame which means a horrible ride over rough surfaces. An engineering disaster but sold at Brompton prices.
Also the less said about the nuwave models the better.
On the wiki page it says this;
Dahon is the world's largest manufacturer of folding bicycles[5][need quotation to verify] with a two-thirds marketshare in 2006
So according to Dahon 2/3rds of all folding bikes were manufactured by Dahon that were sold in 2006 worldwide.
I don't believe that to be a credible and realistic statement even for a company that markets itself with pure lies. It's a premium niche player in almost all world markets and doesn't even manufacture most of its models anyway. The world folding bike market is worth about £800 million in sales and most of those would have been sold at less than $100 as is typical of China, India and most of Asia. Even in the US I doubt it is true for 2006. I just don't believe there is anyone stupid enough to believe that.
Also the less said about the nuwave models the better.
On the wiki page it says this;
Dahon is the world's largest manufacturer of folding bicycles[5][need quotation to verify] with a two-thirds marketshare in 2006
So according to Dahon 2/3rds of all folding bikes were manufactured by Dahon that were sold in 2006 worldwide.
I don't believe that to be a credible and realistic statement even for a company that markets itself with pure lies. It's a premium niche player in almost all world markets and doesn't even manufacture most of its models anyway. The world folding bike market is worth about £800 million in sales and most of those would have been sold at less than $100 as is typical of China, India and most of Asia. Even in the US I doubt it is true for 2006. I just don't believe there is anyone stupid enough to believe that.
I have had a Dahon for 20 years, and my wife a "Capuccin" bike. The Dahon is in better condition. In fact, everything works perfectly accept for the plastic outer layer of the gear cable. This plastic has broken down due to UV light destroying the plastic.
The Dahon is a well made bike.
I am looking to buy two pedalecs, and I have tried several bikes. The Dahon is by far the best I and my wife have ridden. I think the difference is due to it having a proper torque sensor. Others do not unless they cost double or more the amount of money.
We also found the Dahon much more powerful, even with low power settings.
However the bike we road was not the new E-20 model, which has a 200 watt motor (by all reports). Ours used a Bafang 250 Watt motor, and I presume, it used a Bafang transfer case (transferring power from the motor directly to the crank).
I don't know if Bafang made the torque sensor, or if it was developed by Dahon.
Incidentally, welding lines do not indicate the quality of the weld. This is because factories often machine the welding to improve the looks. With bad welding, a way around that issue, is to machine or grind the bad welds, and make it look better quality. But a clean weld doesn't mean its a good weld.
Incidentally, you can go onto the Dahon USA site, and it will show where distributors are for each country. Or maybe, Google might do the same.
Good luck with your investigations on what to buy.
The Dahon is a well made bike.
I am looking to buy two pedalecs, and I have tried several bikes. The Dahon is by far the best I and my wife have ridden. I think the difference is due to it having a proper torque sensor. Others do not unless they cost double or more the amount of money.
We also found the Dahon much more powerful, even with low power settings.
However the bike we road was not the new E-20 model, which has a 200 watt motor (by all reports). Ours used a Bafang 250 Watt motor, and I presume, it used a Bafang transfer case (transferring power from the motor directly to the crank).
I don't know if Bafang made the torque sensor, or if it was developed by Dahon.
Incidentally, welding lines do not indicate the quality of the weld. This is because factories often machine the welding to improve the looks. With bad welding, a way around that issue, is to machine or grind the bad welds, and make it look better quality. But a clean weld doesn't mean its a good weld.
Incidentally, you can go onto the Dahon USA site, and it will show where distributors are for each country. Or maybe, Google might do the same.
Good luck with your investigations on what to buy.
A Dahon with a torque sensing 250W mid-drive Bafang motor?
Can you recall which Dahon you tested?Yes it was the K-One, with the centre motor. Also I have viewed both the rear wheel hub motor drive version, and the centre drive version, and the sensors are totally different.
I did not ride the rear hub motor version either. I had read on a Dahon site, that it also had a torque sensor, but the bike shop inspected the bike and said that here at least, the rear hub motor is a motion only on/off type actuator. tube reviews too, which say the mid motor has a torque sensor activation system.
The rear hub motor version had a large display too, while the centre motor version had a small display, which was not as easy to read. While the centre motor is a torque version I originally thought that both bikes had similar actuation, until I asked the bike shop. I had tried another folding bike with a centre motor, and it felt dead and non reactive. While the same brand's rear motored bike, felt terrific. I was keen on the centre motor until that experience. The centre motor of the other brand was a lot more expensive. But when I road the Dahon, it was instantly a terrific ride. My wife also road the bike and she loved it too. Her negative was it road rougher than the other brand's centre motor drive, which had - it seem to us - an effective front fork suspension.
The Dahon selling bike shop said they rent both of those folding Dahon E-bike or pedalec bikes. Although I don't know why a bike renter would rent a folding bike they are not as comfortable as a bigger wheeled bike.
I did not ride the rear hub motor version either. I had read on a Dahon site, that it also had a torque sensor, but the bike shop inspected the bike and said that here at least, the rear hub motor is a motion only on/off type actuator. tube reviews too, which say the mid motor has a torque sensor activation system.
The rear hub motor version had a large display too, while the centre motor version had a small display, which was not as easy to read. While the centre motor is a torque version I originally thought that both bikes had similar actuation, until I asked the bike shop. I had tried another folding bike with a centre motor, and it felt dead and non reactive. While the same brand's rear motored bike, felt terrific. I was keen on the centre motor until that experience. The centre motor of the other brand was a lot more expensive. But when I road the Dahon, it was instantly a terrific ride. My wife also road the bike and she loved it too. Her negative was it road rougher than the other brand's centre motor drive, which had - it seem to us - an effective front fork suspension.
The Dahon selling bike shop said they rent both of those folding Dahon E-bike or pedalec bikes. Although I don't know why a bike renter would rent a folding bike they are not as comfortable as a bigger wheeled bike.
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Are you sure? Can you provide a link to more information? The only other K One with mid motor I can find any details of, was also developed with Tonsheng: 250W, torque sensing, looks like a Fiido, but with the frame supported under the hinge by way of their Safeline (see post #14).
Dahon K-One Plus Electric Bike
Dahon K-One Plus Electric Bike - Jolta is the first multi-brand EV retailer in the U.S.
jolta.com
- Model Number: FEA083CM
- Weight: 19KG
- Motor: Central Motor, 36V 250W, built-In Controller
Dahon K-One PLUS Folding Mid-Drive E-Bike - Cynergy E-Bikes | Portland OR
Dahon K-One PLUS folding e-bike provides a smooth ride and high-performance power delivery on a light-weight, strudy, compact frame. Riding with this middrive motor will have you grinning from ear-to-ear.
www.cynergyebikes.com
"The mid-drive motor from Tong Sheng is smooth, efficient, and well-powered."
It doesn't have mudguards
Yet another bike designed for California's climate 
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